A blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age; with occasional posts aboutthe Ziegfeld Follies, Denishawn, Frank Wedekind and Lulu, Hollywood, Weimar Germany,and film history, as well as other locales, topics and times with references tobooks, comix, music, art, and history, as written by Thomas Gladysz.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Mary Pickford, Clairvoyant

What strange force led me to browse the newstand at The Booksmith in San Francisco? Was it mere coincedence, or something else? But there I found myself, drawn to something familiar, yet strange. . .

Silent film star Mary Pickford adorns the cover of the October, 2004 issue of Fate magazine. Along with articles on strange occurances, combustible women, harmonic concordances, Russian precognition cases and the language of Sasquatches was an article entitled "Mary Pickford: Superstitious Superstar." Lina Accurso's four page piece on "America's Sweetheart" unconvincingly probes the super-rational leanings of the actress. "But what looked like a charmed life to her legions of fans had indeed been filled with sunshine, shadow, and more than a little of what she called 'superstition.' Today, this ability may be more accurately described as premonitions."

Seemingly, Mary Pickford did have an interest in the paranormal. I recently spotted a handful of books from the actress' library - each of which had some occultish theme - at Allan Milkerit books. A number of them were inscribed by the author to Mary Pickford.

This blog is authored by THOMAS GLADYSZ, Director of the Louise Brooks Society. It is a continuation of the old LBS blog at LiveJournal, which began in 2002. Send comments, questions, or material to share to LouiseBrooksSocietyATgmailDOTcom